


Penny For Your Thoughts?

by yiddishecarteblanche



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Bonding, Breakfast, Gen, No Spoilers, S3, and i just love buddy in general with my whole heart and soul, i love juno finally getting the mother figure he deserves, martian sewer rabbits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23931709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yiddishecarteblanche/pseuds/yiddishecarteblanche
Summary: Juno misses Mars, misses Hyperion City, misses his old life sometimes, but it's never the things you would expect.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko & Juno Steel
Comments: 5
Kudos: 77





	Penny For Your Thoughts?

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should be working on my two other fics, but I was listening to Juno talk about Small Fry and I just... the lady really needs an ESA.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

I shook my head, snapping back into reality. “Huh?”

“A lady staring off into space for fifteen minutes usually means something, darling, and I was beginning to wonder exactly what that was,” Buddy teased, resting her chin in her palm across the table.

I’d let my coffee get cold in my hands and hadn’t even touched the eggs I’d made myself that I was pretty sure by this point would feel like cottage cheese if I ate them now and rubber if I tried to reheat them. Buddy was still looking at me, and I could hear her bionic eye shutter when she blinked. I still wasn’t entirely sure why she wanted to keep me around, but I was glad she did. 

“I.. Ah… It’s nothing. Really.”

“More troubles with Pete?” She looked at me knowingly, and I could feel my ears heat up. I knew I’d been a little preoccupied lately, but I hoped I hadn’t only talked about Nureyev with her in the last few weeks.

“No. I was actually thinking about Mars.” It was a bit embarrassing, honestly. I didn’t want to admit what I’d been thinking about, what had made me homesick this time. Being out in space was fun, sure, but occasionally I missed the sand beneath my feet and the dry, desert air of home, even if it was a bit of a hellhole. It was my hellhole, you know?

“What about it, darling? The weather? I know you’re a little unaccustomed to the humidity on the last few planets we’ve visited.”

“No… I actually… kind of miss the rabbits?” I smiled, embarrassed. Before Small Fry, before I went down there with Alessandra, I hadn’t been down in the sewers since Sasha’s… exam. And before that, it had been years. But Hyperion City’s rabbits were something small but constant, always there. Well, until recently when O’Flaherty tried to kill them all.

“The ones that live in the sewers?”

“Yeah. They’re actually not that bad, once you get to know them.” Buddy was looking at me like I had three heads. I knew she wasn’t from Hyperion City, and even most of the people there didn’t dare venture down into the sewers. People usually only saw rabbits in the news when some drunk schmuck wandered down there and disrupted a den, emerging a bloody mess with no coms or creds left in his pocket.

“They’re actually kind of sweet, you know? Once they know you’re not a danger and you give them a few creds, they’ll sit with you while you and make sure nobody worse comes along,” I chuckled, “And if you get to know them well enough, sometimes they’ll even let you pet them. They really like it if you scratch their stomachs, where their hair is the softest, but that usually takes a few times, and finding the same rabbit twice can be a bit of a challenge.”

“How do you know all this, darling?” Buddy asked, significantly more interested now. I guess I’d finally told her something she didn’t know. She was always so eager to absorb all the information she could get her hands on, and in her eye, I could see her, younger, completely absorbed in book after book as she tried to give herself the upper hand the only way she knew how, information.

“I used to spend a lot of time in the sewers as a kid. My home life was kind of a mess, so when I got fed up, I would just go wander in the sewers. It was safer than Old Town. At least if you had a few creds and some snacks on you, you could get protection and no one would try to steal your books. One time, I was having a particularly rough night, and this rabbit picked me up by my shirt like I was a baby and dragged me into her den with her kits. They were all piled on top of each other like giant pom poms and the mom kept trying to groom my hair. She didn’t really know what to think of curls. It took me four hours to escape, but it was kind of nice to have someone care like that.” I laughed. Buddy looked amused and I was glad someone finally didn’t look concerned when I told them about this.

“Back on Mars, there were memories all around me, you know? Hyperion City changes all the time; it never stops, but some things stay the same, undercurrents that tie the whole thing together. But out here, sometimes I can go hours without thinking about Mars at all. There’s a strange sort of freedom in that, but it’s kind of sad too. I don’t know if I’ll ever see Hyperion again, or even if I want to. It’s much easier to see the good parts from a distance, even if I left it behind because of them. Does that make any sense?” I look to Buddy now, who has the same look she always does when I start monologueing, half-listening, but acting like she cares. It’s nice.

“More well than you know, darling. Now, you’re supposed to be in the hold in twenty minutes, and it doesn’t even look like you’ve showered. You might want to hurry up.”

God damn it. I’d lost track of time again. I muttered a thank you and shoveled my now-disgustingly-tepid eggs into my mouth, washing it down with my lukewarm coffee, throwing my dishes in the sink for later, and running to my room, hoping the outfit I’d picked out was ok.


End file.
